Indicator 15.2.1: Progress towards sustainable forest management
Target 15.2: By 2020, promote the implementation of sustainable management of all types of forests, halt deforestation, restore degraded forests and substantially increase afforestation and reforestation globally
Goal 15: Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss
Definition:
This indicator measures progress towards sustainable forest management (SFM) The indicator comprises five sub-indicators:
(1) Forest area net change rate;
(2) Above-ground biomass stock in forest;
(3) Proportion of forest area located within legally established protected areas;
(4) Proportion of forest area under a long-term forest management plan; and
Concepts:
Sustainable forest management is defined as a “[a] dynamic and evolving concept [that] aims to maintain and enhance the economic, social and environmental values of all types of forests, for the benefit of present and future generations” (Resolution A/RES/62/98).
Forest is defined as land spanning more than 0.5 hectares with trees higher than 5 meters and a canopy cover of more than 10 percent, or trees able to reach these thresholds in situ. It does not include land that is predominantly under agricultural or urban land use. Additional detailed criteria are listed in FAO’s Global Forest Resources Assessment (FRA) 2020 Terms and Definitions Document available at http://www.fao.org/3/I8661EN/i8661en.pdf.
Above-ground biomass is defined as all living biomass above the soil, including stem, stump, branches, bark, seeds and foliage. In cases where forest understorey is a relatively small component of the aboveground biomass carbon pool, it is acceptable to exclude it, provided this is done in a consistent manner throughout the inventory time series.
Protected Areas, are areas especially dedicated to the protection and maintenance of biological diversity, and of natural and associated cultural resources, and managed through legal or other effective means.
Forest area within protected areas refers to forest area within formally established protected areas independently of the purpose for which the protected areas were established and includes International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) categories I-IV:
– Category Ia: Strict nature reserve
– Category Ib: Wilderness area
– Category II: National park
– Category III: Natural monument or feature
– Category IV: Habitat/species management area.
Forest area with management plan refers to forest areas that have a long-term documented management plan, aiming at defined management goals, which is periodically revised. It may refer to forest management unit level or aggregated forest management unit level (forest blocks, farms, enterprises, watersheds, municipalities, or wider units). It also includes forest areas that are within protected areas with management plan.
A management plan must include adequate detail on operations planned for individual operational units (stands or compartments) but may also provide general strategies and activities planned to reach management goals.
Rationale and Interpretation:
The five sub-indicators contribute to the measurement of progress in SFM in various ways:
Unit of measure:
(1) Forest area net change rate: Percentage (%)
(2) Above-ground biomass stock in forest: tonnes/hectare
(3) Proportion of forest area located within legally established protected areas: Percentage (%)
(4) Proportion of forest area under a long-term forest management plan: Percentage (%)
Classification:
Data sources:
(1) Forest area net change rate
The Land Cover Map 2015: http://geoportal.bforest.gov.bd/layers/geonode:national3
The National Land Cover Representation System (NLRS): http://bfis.bforest.gov.bd/library/land-representation-system-of-bangladesh/
(2) Above-ground biomass stock in forest
Tree and Forest Resources of Bangladesh: Report on the Bangladesh Forest Inventory: http://bfis.bforest.gov.bd/bfi/bfi-data/
(3) Proportion of forest area located within legally established protected areas
Under preparation
(4) Proportion of forest area under a long-term forest management plan
Data collection methods:
The Land Cover Map 2015 serves as the baseline reference for forest area, which will be updated in 2020 to obtain annual net change. The classes representing forest and non-forest areas were developed under the National Land Representation System (NLRS).
For the development of land cover map 2015, multi-spectral ortho (Level 3) SPOT6/7 four band images of 6-meter spatial resolution with maximum 10% cloud coverage were primarily used for the whole country. An Object-Based Image Analysis approach (i.e., multi resolution segmentation algorithm) was adopted to create image objects using the green, red and near-infrared bands of SPOT imagery. Meaningful image segments were directly assigned with land cover code by visual interpretation. Image segments not corresponding well to geo-objects were manually edited (i.e., manual digitization by visual interpretation of satellite image) before assigning an appropriate land cover code. Seasonal variations in land and water features are common in Bangladesh. Landsat 8 and Sentinel 2 images from different seasons were taken into consideration in visually interpreting areas having a seasonal variation (especially agricultural classes). Field data were collected from 1,144 locations across the country to characterize the classes of the NLRS.
For the NLRS, the initial legend classes for land cover map 2015 were derived during a national workshop with experts from different organizations working in relevant fields. These initial classes were further refined during map development process to develop the final legend. Some of the classes were extended from the NLRS (e.g., bamboo forest, rubber plantation, etc.), while some other classes were merged (e.g., short and long rotation plantation into forest plantation) when differences among these classes were not discernible from the available satellite images by visual interpretation. The final land cover map has 33 classes.
Above-ground biomass stock is determined from an inventory of forest plots systematically placed throughout the whole country under the Bangladesh Forest Inventory. The design of the Bangladesh Forest Inventory is an approximation to a non-aligned systematic sampling (within strata). The number of plots within each stratum was optimized to achieve minimum cost while also meeting national precision requirements for each of the key attributes of interest to be between ±5% to ±10% of the attribute mean at the 90% confidence level.
Individual trees within the plots are measured for circumference and height, and information is collected about the species and condition. This information provides the necessary inputs for allometric equations which estimates the tree total aboveground biomass, including leaves and branches. A national database of allometric models was prepared and a decision tree applied for selecting the most appropriate allometric models.
Data collection calendar: 2021
Data release calendar: 2022
Data providers: Forest Department, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change
Data compilers: Forest Department, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change
Institutional mandate: Through the Statistical Act 2013, the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) is mandated to generate official statistics or provide guidance to other agencies for producing official statistics. Responsibilities for each ministry to support specific SDG indicators is outlined in the Mapping of Ministries by Targets in the implementation of SDGs aligning with 7th Five Year Plan (2016-20) document, which lists Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change as the official Lead Ministry for this indicator. The Forest Department is the designated line agency within the Ministry for this indicator.
Computation Method:
Sub-indicator 1: forest area annual net change rate
This indicator is calculated using a compound interest formula to determine the annual net change rate.
Where:
A1 is forest area for year t1 and A2 is forest area for year t2
For example, if forest area for a country in year 2010 is 20 million hectares and year 2015 21 million hectares, the value of the annual net change rate becomes
A2/A1 = 21Mha/20Mha = 1.05
t2-t1 =2015-2010=5
q=[1.051/5 -1] = [1.004988 -1] * 100 = 0.498756 %
Sub-indicator 2: Above-ground biomass stock in forest
The formula is given as follows:
Sub-indicator 3: Proportion of forest area located within legally established protected areas
Percentage of forest area located within legally established protected areas is calculated as:
Sub-indicator 4: Proportion of forest area under a long-term forest management plan.
Percentage of forest area under a long-term forest management plan is calculated as:
Comments and limitations:
The four sub-indicators chosen to illustrate progress towards sustainable forest management do not fully cover all aspects of sustainable forest management such as social and economic aspects.
Method of computation:
For details about computation methods of net change and above-ground biomass please see related documentation links below.
Validation:
Quality Management:
Quality Assurance:
Quality control was achieved through hot and cold checks on 3% and 7% of the plots respectively by four Quality Assurance and Quality Check (QA/QC) teams composed of FD and the University Faculty members.
Quality Assessment:
Under preparation.
This indicator can be disaggregated by geographical regions, forest types, or tree species among other dimensions.
Forest area previously published for Bangladesh in the Forest Resource Assessment (FRA) report is different from the statistic produced using the current approach because of methodological differences.
Above-ground biomass estimated in the Bangladesh Forest Inventory (2016-2019) used different plots and different allometric equations than previous estimations, most notably the National Forest and Tree Resource Assessment 2005-2007, Bangladesh (available at http://bfis.bforest.gov.bd/library/national-forest-and-tree-resources-assessment-2005-2007-bangladesh/). For these reasons, direct comparisons are complicated and should be done carefully.
Official SDG Metadata URL
https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/metadata/files/Metadata-15-02-01.pdf
Internationally agreed methodology and guideline URL
FRA 2020 Terms and definitions: http://www.fao.org/3/I8661EN/i8661en.pdf FRA 2020 Guidelines and Specifications: http://www.fao.org/3/I8699EN/i8699en.pdf
Other references
GoB. 2017. Land Representation System of Bangladesh (In Support of REDD+), Forest Department, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh. Available at: http://bfis.bforest.gov.bd/library/land-representation-system-of-bangladesh/
GoB (2019), Tree and forest resources of Bangladesh: Report on the Bangladesh Forest Inventory. Forest Department, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, Dhaka, Bangladesh. Available at: http://bfis.bforest.gov.bd/library/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/BFI_report_final_5-8-20.pdf
GoB (2020), Land Cover Atlas of Bangladesh 2015 (in support of REDD+), Forest Department, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, Dhaka, Bangladesh. Available at: http://bfis.bforest.gov.bd/library/land-cover-atlas-of-bangladesh-2015/
Planning Commission. Mapping of Ministries by Targets in the implementation of SDGs aligning with 7th Five Year Plan (2016-20): A Handbook. Support to Sustainable and Inclusive Planning (SSIP) Project, General Economics Division (GED), Planning Commission, 2017. Available at: http://bbs.portal.gov.bd/sites/default/files/files/bbs.portal.gov.bd/page/3acbc97e_6ba3_467b_bdb2_cfb3cbbf059f/A-Handbook-Mapping-of-Ministries_-targets_-SDG_-7-FYP_2016.pdf
This document was prepared based on inputs from Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO).
For focal point information for this indicator, please visit https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/dataContacts/
